Merge pull request #413 from nikomatsakis/async-foundations-wg-polish

blog post about foundation wg and focus issues

Author: nikomatsakis

posts/inside-rust/2019-10-07-AsyncAwait-WG-Focus-Issues.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Async Foundations Update: Time for polish!"
+author: Niko Matsakis
+description: "A new blog where the Rust team can post updates on the latest developments"
+team: the Async Foundations WG <https://rust-lang.github.io/compiler-team/working-groups/async-await/>
+---
+
+As you've perhaps heard, recently the async-await feature [landed on
+the Rust beta branch][blog]. This marks a big turning point in the
+usability story for Async Rust. But there's still a lot of work to do.
+As we mentioned in the main post, the focus for the [Async Foundations
+WG][wg] in the immediate term is going to be **polish**, **polish**
+and (ahem) **more polish**.
+
+In particular, we want to take aim at a backlog of strange
+diagnostics, suboptimal performance, and the occasional inexplicable
+type-check failure. This is a shift: whereas before, we could have
+laser focus on things that truly blocked stabilization, we've now got
+a large set of bugs, often without a clear prioritization between
+them. This requires us to mix up how the [Async Foundations WG][wg] is
+operating.
+
+[wg]: https://rust-lang.github.io/compiler-team/working-groups/async-await/
+[blog]: /2019/09/30/Async-await-hits-beta.html
+
+### Announcing: focus issues
+
+So how do you deal with a large pile of issues, all of which are
+important but none of which are vital? One at a time, of course.
+
+The way we've chosen to organize this is something we call **[focus
+issues][fi]**. We're trying to keep a small number of issues tagged as
+focus issues at any given time. As we close them, we'll pick new ones
+to replace them. The number of these issues depends on mentoring
+bandwidth and on how many people are hacking -- as a rule of thumb,
+they should mostly all be assigned and actively progressing at any
+given time.
+
+[fi]: https://rust-lang.github.io/compiler-team/working-groups/async-await/#how-to-get-involved
+
+We also have a secondary set of issues called **on deck issues**.
+These are the candidates to become focus issues as focus issues are
+completed. If you'd like us to consider fixing something sooner rather
+than later, you can [add the "on deck" label yourself][nom], along
+with a bit of context explaining why you think this issue is more
+important than the rest.
+
+### How you can help
+
+You can help in two ways:
+
+* **Fix bugs!** If you'd like to take a shot at fixing a bug, try to
+  come to the [triage meeting] or just show up in
+  [`#wg-async-foundations` on Zulip][z]. Maybe we can find something
+  for you.
+* **Nominate bugs!** If you've got a bug that is really
+  annoying you, feel free to "nominate it" by [following the
+  instructions here][nom]. This will help us to fix the things that
+  are bothering people the most.
+
+[triage meeting]: https://rust-lang.github.io/compiler-team/working-groups/async-await/#triage-meeting
+[nom]: https://rust-lang.github.io/compiler-team/working-groups/async-await/#nominating-issues
+[z]: https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/187312-wg-async-foundations